Two Beechmount murals today on the same theme: republican prisoners of war in Maghaberry and Hydebank (site of prisons for women and for young offenders).
Érıu/Éıre of the Tuatha Dé Danann, queen of Ireland, (as depicted by Richard J King) is at the centre of various representations of republican women. Along the top are Ann Devlin, Betsy Gray, Mary Ann McCracken, Countess Markievicz, Nora Connolly?, and Winifred Carney. Suffragettes, the modern IRA, and Cumman Na mBan are depicted, as are Máıre Drumm at the Falls Curfew, Tom McElwee’s sisters carrying his coffin, and Molly Childers and Mary Spring Rice running guns on the Asgard. There is also an unusual ‘four provinces’ in the corners.
The wide shot (below) shows the James Connolly mural below (seen previously in 2012) and the (recently added) 1916 centenary board – for which see Ag fíorú na poblachta.
Martin McGuinness waits, with hand outstretched, to greet a smiling Queen Elizabeth who strides towards him carrying a bloodied axe and wearing a Union flag apron spattered with the blood of people from Ireland, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Mural in Beechmount reproducing a 2012 Latuff cartoon.
Anti-touting posters on the Whiterock and Falls roads: “People Should Not Inform” to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and Mi5. The Falls example also has a “End the internment of Tony Taylor” sticker from “Irish Republican Tims [Fb?]”.
Here is another mural, this time in west Belfast, in the campaign demanding a response to a shortage in low-income housing. For more, see previously, Equality Can’t Wait.
At the bottom of Divis tower: a wheel of hands from children of different races exhorts residents to overlook differences in skin-tone (“one race, one love, one world”) while the letterbox has been repainted green instead of red.
“Richard Mussen joined the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers (27th foot) at the age of 15. At the outbreak of the Zulu wars he volunteered for active service and was transferred to the Second Battalion The South Wales Borderers (24th foot). At the outbreak of the Great War he joined the 9th Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles and with him went his 4 sons and 2 sons-in-law. His son Richard (junior) was killed at the Somme on Thursday 21st March, 1918 and is remembered at Pozieres Memorial. Richard Mussen was buried from 22 Dundee Street [which was just above Agnes Street] on 29/12/1936 and was accorded full Military Honours. He was laid to rest in Belfast City Cemetery.” (From the plaque shown in image #3, below.)
Here is a short NVTv documentary about Mussen, including (at 12m25s) the image on which the mural shown here is based. The mural was done with spray paint by artist Sam Bates a.k.a. SMUG. It was unveiled on June 24th, 2011.
“Republican Socialist movement — IRSP INLA — remembers and salutes all those who gave their lives and liberty in the struggle for national liberation and socialism in Ireland.”
The Easter Lily on a red, five-pointed, star ties together the centenary of the Easter Rising with republican socialism. This is another IRSP/INLA stencilled mural commemorating the centenary of the Rising. A very similar piece appears in Divis— see National Liberation And Socialism; this one is in Beechmount.